Thankful for change…

This change, although I couldn’t see it then, bore the greatest gift of all…

I found out I was pregnant last November, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It is difficult to go back to my state of mind at the time. But to give you an idea, I told my mother I was pregnant via text message.

That Sunday, a store-bought pregnancy test confirmed what my body already knew. At a time when many others were giving thanks, I was contemplating the difference between blessings and burdens.

I was 22 years old, unmarried and living with my grandmother. Jason Sr. and I had only been dating three months. This was not my dream.

Thanksgiving week was filled with questions I wasn’t ready to answer. How was I going to include a child in my life? How would I find the means to provide for a child? What would happen between me and Jason Sr.?

No woman dreams of being someone’s “baby’s mama.” Nor does a woman want a man to marry them under those conditions. But Jason Sr. loved me. I knew that. We had already had marriage talks. It wasn’t about him. It was about me. I didn’t want to give up who I was. I wasn’t ready to accept the change that was forming inside of me.

I didn’t want to grow up. I planned to live with my grandmother for a year to save up money for college. And after earning bachelor’s degrees in Japanese and education, I wanted to star in several Broadway plays before teaching at inner-city schools around the country. During the summers I planned to travel the world. Italy and Japan were at the top of my list.

I knew that having a family would change that. I would have to sacrifice and postpone some of those dreams. I hated the idea.

Within a year my life was transformed. Jason Sr. and I moved into an apartment together a few days after Thanksgiving. He proposed to me the same week. We got married on March 28 of this year.

Last Thanksgiving I was a girl in search of myself. I was afraid of life. This Thanksgiving I’m embracing it.